Note from the Times: Olivia Schwyhart, of Lawrence, has been documenting the growth of seven little gray kittens born at the beginning of April 2021. She’s been sharing photos on the Instagram account andromeda.beans, and the Times asked her if she would be willing to write about them in a series for our publication.
Follow along with Andromeda’s kittens as they grow on their Instagram account, and learn a little bit more from their human mom here and in other posts on The Lawrence Times’ website.
Other editions:
1 — April 17, 2021: Catching up with Andromeda’s kittens: Birth through 2 weeks
2 — April 24, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 3 weeks, a little less wobbly
3 — May 1, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 4 weeks, growing, learning, and climbing
4 — May 8, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 5 weeks, no pen too high to climb
5 — May 15, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 6 weeks, big enough to get their own room
6 — May 22, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 7 weeks, they’ve reached the top of the cat tree
7 — May 29, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 8 weeks, some start to leave the nest
8 — June 5, 2021: Andromeda’s kittens: At 9 weeks, babies and mama heading to new homes
6 weeks old: Free range!
The kittens are six weeks old now. We have decided to give them free range of the entire bedroom they are in.
They are agile enough not to get stuck under the bed and we haven’t had problems finding “lost” ones. We find ourselves counting to seven a lot more often just to make sure no one escaped the room.
They rarely nurse from mom these days, and they get full meals of softened dry food or canned food. They usually have pretty good appetites and it is so cute seeing them gather together from the four corners of the room at meal time.
They discovered how to climb the cat tree and play with toys, and they have tons of energy to burn.
Weeks ago, we had them marked on their toes with different colors to tell them apart, but that started wearing off faster than we could remark them. Finally we feel like they are old enough for little colors made from hair ties, so now that we can tell them all apart again it’s easier to see their personalities developing.
Blue is always the last one to the food bowl; he would rather sleep in. Pink loves to nibble on toes. The biggest one, Yellow, loves to climb.
It’s just about time for the toughest part of this whole endeavor: deciding which homes they will go to. It will be so hard to see them go in couple weeks.
Look for more on Andromeda’s kittens soon, and happy Caturday!
